Released by Sega into the arcades in 1985, and
designed by the legendary Yu Suzuki, Space Harrier is a shoot-em-up that
ditched the horizontal or vertical views of most games at the time, and put the
viewpoint right behind the player. Featuring a flight stick to emulate piloting
a jet fighter, players take control of the "Harrier", a blond guy wearing a red shirt and blue pants.

Through means left
entirely unexplained, the Harrier can fly over the landscape at incredible
speed. Armed only with a huge cannon, he rushes forward, destroying the
bizarre, dangerous creatures of Dragon Land.
It wasn't the first game to use this technology - Space Harrier
is predated by Sega's own 1982 3D shooter Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom - but it's a huge technological improvement, and manages to look extremely
impressive even today.

The action is remarkably
simple: just fly, dodge, and shoot back. Even though there's no targeting
crosshair, aiming is remarkably easy, as you only need to shoot in the general
vicinity of a foe to hit them. Bad guys also shoot directly at the Harrier, so
as long as you keep moving and don't backtrack over your previous position, you
won't get hit. All the while, you'll be maneuvering the Harrier between stone
columns, stationary poles, and various kinds of plants. While you'll usually
only trip over bushes and rocks, smacking into a tree spells certain death (the
original arcade release also has a glitch where you'll shoot right through
bushes, though most later ports fix this).

The trippy backgrounds are
a trademark of Space Harrier. The ground consists of a flat checkerboard
which changes color every stage. The sky switches between from bright blue to
the yellow of dusk, to the pink atmosphere of some otherworldly planet. Across
the horizons are alien buildings and landscapes which fall and rise after the
completion of each stage. A few levels even feature a ceiling, giving a
hallucinatory feeling of claustrophobia. There are 18 stages total.

The enemies in Dragon Land are extremely creative
and distinctive. The Harrier fights one-eyed mammoths, bulbous yellow squids, stone
heads, and orbs that resemble cybernetic peanuts. Amidst all of the bizarre
enemies are more standard types, like jets and flying mecha (which are
basically the Doms from Mobile Suit Gundam), although even these designs
are still incredibly cool looking. But the most impressive foes are the
dragons, usually taking the role of the level boss. Each of these consists of a
head and several segments which, in motion, gives the appearance of long,
floating Chinese dragons. Their visage is reminiscent of Falkor the Luck Dragon
from the movie The Neverending Story.

Keeping control over the Harrier, all while
dodging and firing amidst the wild colors, is the kind of glorious chaos that
is representative of the best in 1980s arcade gaming. The stages have strange
names like Moot, Geeza, Minia, Parm and Absymbel, that help create a
distinctive and thoroughly memorable game world. There are also a few bonus
stages, where the Harrier hops on the back of a white dragon named Uriah.
Although he's hard to control, Uriah is invincible, and the goal is simply to
smash as much of the landscape as possible.

Space Harrier's theme song is incredible, composed by famed Sega musician Hiroshi
Kawaguchi, and easily ranks as one of the most memorable in gaming. It only
fades out during boss fights or special stages, but it's long enough that it
never gets tiring. There's also the encouraging voice over, which yells
"Welcome to the Fantasy Zone! Get Ready!" or proclaims "You're doing great!"
after the end of each level. Even after dying, as your Harrier screams in agony
and falls to the ground, a friendly message pops up that says "Many more battle
scenes will soon be available!" as he picks himself off the ground and returns
to battle.

Given its popularity, it's natural that Space
Harrier would be ported to every possible platform. Unfortunately, given
the advanced hardware of Sega's bespoke Space Harrier arcade board,
there was no home system at the time
that could pull off the scaling effects necessary to replicate the sense of
speed found in the original. Not only that, but the analog control needed to be
ditched in favor of digital, which greatly alters the gameplay.

Haya-Oh in the SMS version

The first console port was to Sega's own Master
System. The pace had to be stifled quite a bit for the 8-bit machine to keep
up, and the scrolling is much choppier. Still, the huge enemies manage to
impress. For the most part, the enemies and levels are comparable to the arcade
version. Sega added an additional final boss named Haya-Oh (named after Hayao
Nakayama, the then-president of Sega) and a real ending - which is much better
than the arcade version, which simply showed up a huge "The End" sign. Also
hidden is the ability to play as a jet fighter and a secret message that urges
players to write to Sega giving their opinions.

Game Gear Title Screen

The Game Gear port is based on the Master System
release. Due to the smaller screen size some of the proportions had to be
changed, so the Harrier is much bigger. The enemy sprites have been altered to
appear more organic. Some of the level names have been changed as well, and
there are only 12 stages in total. A password function also allows players to
skip to later levels. Despite running on the same hardware as the Master
System, the music has been rearranged.

Game Gear Artwork

Takara ported Space Harrier to the
Famicom. While the scrolling is smoother than the SMS port, the Harrier moves
incredibly slowly. There's a whole bunch of flicker, and all of the sprites are
smaller. They couldn't even fit any of the voices in. The enemy arrangement is
based on the Master System version, so it has the additional final boss.

NEC Avenue and Dempa brought Space Harrier
to the TurboGrafx-16. It's smoother than the other 8-bit console ports, but it
still doesn't feel quite right, and it both looks and sounds ugly. The
checkerboard floor is also gone.

Dempa also took care of the computer
ports in Japan. The versions on the PC-6001 and the PC-8801 are the worst
looking iterations out there. While the Harrier is a low-color sprite (as are
the enemies in the latter version), everything else, including the clouds,
trees and bullets, are just featureless colored rectangles. And yet despite how
awful it looks (or perhaps because of this), it keeps up the speed, and
actually plays more smoothly than most of the European computer ports.

The Sharp MZ-700 and X1 conversions are
slight steps up, though most everything still looks like colored blotches. The
Fujitsu FM-7 version looks decent and plays alright. The X68000 port is by far
the best of these, with smooth animation and almost completely faithful
gameplay, though the checkerboard floor has been removed in favor of scrolling
bars. All of these computer versions have slightly different but excellent
soundtracks. The X68000 version features Haya-Oh, the SMS ending, and a new credits
sequence, along with two new music tracks.

Elite handled the home computer ports
for Europe and North America. The version for the Commodore 64 is too fast and choppy,
though the music is decent. The European version is slightly better, being that
the floor has a scrolling effect, whereas it's just a solid color in the
American release. The ZX Spectrum version is sluggish and hideously colored.
The Amstrad version looks nicer, though while the Harrier is a detailed sprite,
the enemies and objects are simple wireframes.

The IBM PC version looks alright, but
the animation is still very choppy, and the speed feels off. The Amiga and Atari
ST versions are the best of these, with faithful graphics and good animation
which isn't quite as smooth as the arcade version, but far more playable than
its brethren. However, due to the size, it had to be split into two separate
games - Space Harrier and Space Harrier: Return to the Fantasy Zone.

It wasn't until the 32X in 1992 that Space
Harrier finally came home in nearly arcade perfect form, but it only runs
at 30 FPS. The Saturn version was released five years later as part of the Sega
Ages line, and is very nearly arcade perfect. It came out on a single disc
in Japan, and was bundled together with OutRun and After Burner II
for the Western release. It includes true analog control to mimic the original
arcade game.

Space Harrier is also playable in both Shenmue
titles for the Dreamcast and Xbox. It's missing some of the customization
options of the other ports, but if you can beat the game in one credit, you get
a certificate from the arcade owner in the first Shenmue.

The Game Boy Advance version was
featured as part of the Sega Arcade Gallery collection, ported by Bits
Studio. Although it looks fine on the outset, it's badly programmed, and just
doesn't feel right.

Space Harrier saw a remake on the PlayStation 2
under the Sega Ages 2500 series. The entire game has been redone with
polygons, but the whole makeover looks rather cheap, with jaggy visuals and low
resolution textures. The redesigned look of the Harrier is lousy, with his
silly goggles and spiky blond hair. The graphics lose much of the bright color
that made the original so attractive, but since the objects here are actual 3D
objects instead of 2D sprites, it gives a better impression of depth and scale.
In the original game, all of the boss dragons were made out of individual segments
that scrolled in unison, giving the illusion of a flying beast. Here, they
actually look like dragons. There's no option for analog control, sadly.

PS2 remake title screen

The remixed music tracks are quite
good, and the new announcer spouts more ridiculous phrases, like "Get busy,
Harrier! Dragon Land is screaming!" There's also now a lock-on laser similar to
Panzer Dragoon, along with a limited-use rapid fire button. You can also
get bombs to clear the screen, but these make the boss battles far too easy.

The new "Fractal Mode" turns off the
classic checkerboard pattern and replaces it with a texture map, which looks
pretty ugly. It also changes certain parts of the level so you can't run on
them and need to fly. Additionally, there are a few extra tunnel stages, where you
zoom through an enclosed tube. These would have been cooler had they not pasted
the same low-res textures on the walls. Both the PS2 and the Japan-only Sonic
Cafe mobile releases change the robots to look less like Doms.

There are also arcade-perfect ports available on the Space Harrier II Complete Collection for the PS2, and on the Wii Virtual Console, the latter of which features analog control by tilting the nunchuck. It's also unlockable in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but the scaling effects are dodgy, and the audio is too high pitched.

Haya-Oh in the 3DS version

In 2011, a hobbyist programmer named
Chris Hutt ported Space Harrier to the Atari 8-bit computers. It's a
true work of art, because it's better than the official computer ports that
came out in the 1980s, with excellent visuals, fast action, and smooth
gameplay. It is free to download.

In 2012, 3D
Space Harrier was released for the 3DS. Ported by M2, it features outstanding 3D visuals
and widescreen. There's a mode to simulate the moving cabinet of the arcade
game that tilts the screen back and forth, complete with simulated gear noises.
Also included is a stage select and Haya-Oh as a hidden final boss, along with a
new track by Manabu Namiki for the final battle. The Dom enemy has also been renamed Varel, but their design has not changed.

Space Harrier 3D is not merely a remake of Space Harrier with 3D effects, rather it's a new title created to take advantage of the Master System's 3D shutter glasses. The effect is pretty remarkable - although nothing flies out of the screen, it gives the playing field a sense of depth that is incredibly cool. The unfortunate tradeoff is that the scrolling and movement is even choppier than it was in the Master System version of the first game. Since it's harder to judge enemy and projectile motion, it's also far more difficult than the original, and not in a good way.

Still, it is an interesting experience, even if the fundamental gameplay hasn't changed all that much. There's a whole new array of monsters, including gigantic mechs and ferocious flying samurai. There are a few more obstacles to avoid, like indestructible bouncing balls and rods that seem small at a distance but grow to full length as you approach them. Some of the color schemes used in the later levels (especially the dark red and pitch black) are a far cry from the pastels of the original, leading to an atmosphere that feels more oppressive than fantastical.

The plot is that Uriah, the good dragon from the first game, has been kidnapped, and it's up to you to save him. This accounts for why the bonus stages are gone. The Space Harrier main theme is back, along with a handful of new songs. The Japanese version also supports FM synth.

There is an option to turn off the 3D functionality, although it requires that you play the game to get a high score, then enter a code to enable the selection. Both the PlayStation 2 port and certain emulators allow you to turn off the 3D effect from the beginning, in addition to viewing the game with the traditional red-blue glasses used in other media for years. Although a lot of the visual impact is lost, it's the only way to really get the experience without shelling out for the actual hardware.